Luka and the Fire of Life

Honored with almost every conceivable award for literary merit, Salman Rushdie penned this richly imagined fable for his son—and for book lovers the world over. From Rashid’s fertile intellect spring bedazzling tales his son Luka devours with a child’s earnestness. But when Rashid succumbs to an unending sleep, Luka must enter a magical world ruled by video-game logic.

Freedom: A Novel

Patty and Walter Berglund were the new pioneers of old St. Paul - the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the Whole Foods generation. Patty was the ideal sort of neighbor, who could tell you where to recycle your batteries and how to get the local cops to do their job. She was an enviably perfect mother and the wife of Walter's dreams. Together with Walter - environmental lawyer, commuter cyclist, total family man - she was doing her small part to build a better world.

Put this book next to the Corrections, Don Delilo's White Noise or Underworld, or Salman Rushie's Shalamar the Clown, as a book that connects suburban domestic soap opera to global forces. The story never distances itself for the minute motivations of everyday suburban white reality, and yet it connects realistically with massive global social and economic forces. Want to know where we are? Read this book.

The Coming of the Third Reich

There is no story in 20th-century history more important to understand than Hitler’s rise to power and the collapse of civilization in Nazi Germany. With The Coming of the Third Reich, Richard Evans, one of the world’s most distinguished historians, has written the definitive account for our time.

Details the complex web of circumstances that allowed Hitler to rise to power. Clearly his personality was unique in the combinations of his passions, his ruthlessness, and his political savvy, but the circumstances he took advantage of had to foster certain fears and desires among wide segments of society. This makes sense of it.

Mockingjay: The Final Book of The Hunger Games

Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has survived the Hunger Games twice. But now that she's made it out of the bloody arena live, she's still not safe. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge....

The Third Reich in Power

The definitive account of Germany's malign transformation under Hitler's total rule and the implacable march to war. This magnificent second volume of Richard J. Evans's three-volume history of Nazi Germany was hailed by Benjamin Schwartz of The Atlantic Monthly as "the definitive English-language account... gripping and precise." It chronicles the incredible story of Germany's radical reshaping under Nazi rule.

Awful. Reads like a confused dream not a novel. Like a story made up be 11-year-olds on a play ground at recess..."They have giant wings that fold-up and hide under their clothes so you don't notice them...and then they find and ATM card and guess the PIN #...And then the computers in the electronics story start talking to them...And then they discover a science lab in the subway..."

The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court

Based on exclusive interviews with justices themselves, The Nine tells the story of the Supreme Court through personalities, from Anthony Kennedy's overwhelming sense of self-importance to Clarence Thomas' well-tended grievances against his critics to David Souter's odd 19th-century lifestyle. There is also, for the first time, the full behind-the-scenes story of Bush v. Gore and Sandra Day O'Connor's fateful breach with George W. Bush, the president she helped place in office.

The basic premise of this book is that Supreme Court justices' decisions are better understood as the result of personality and politics than of judicial philosophy. The book is a detailed explanation of how the dynamics of nine personalities, and the internal politics of assigning decisions and recruiting "opinions" to build a majority, drives the final outcome of decisions. The work is in the same mode as "The Brethren" by Woodward and Armstrong but deals with a very different time on the court.

The in-depth profiles of each justice are fascinating, detailed, and little gossipy. The author is most interesting when tracing how time on the court changes the justices themselves.

The profile of Scalia is interesting for its depth and respect, especially for a judge whose judicial philosophy the author clearly disagrees with. The profile of Thomas reads as shrill and one-sided. I don't actually know enough to judge the accuracy of the information but the tone is so disdainful, it made me skeptical.

The rest of the justices are addressed with reverent attention, and the author's assessment of their careers is supported by so much detailed information that you will be able to decide for yourself how much you agree.

Overall, the descriptions of the history and the central conflict at the center of each case provide a compelling view of the work of the court and how it ultimately gets done.

Middlesex

In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry-blonde classmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between them - along with Callie's failure to develop physically - leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all.

I have to support the "Best Ever" audio book award for this reading of this book. The vivid narration is so essential to the characterization it's hard for me to imagine that the author himself didn't direct the reading. I've been listening to two books a month for 18+ months, and I love this book, but I love this reading of this book more.

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